1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a billing system. More particularly, this invention relates to a billing system which provides enhanced forced accounting and reduced billing features.
2. Related Art
There are a number of software billing systems which exist in the art. These commonly include a manual entry or initiation of time and enable in-house creation of a bill. These systems fail to adequately alleviate important problems associated with billing systems.
For example, some of these systems require that the service provider input time and cost and then create a bill. However, the trend of professionals is to become more self-sufficient in their jobs and often requires the professional, accountant or lawyer for example, to become more computer-interactive and produce much of the work product. Depending upon the particular profession, there is a need to accurately account for and bill a client as a function of time spent on a particular matter.
Accounting for phone time remains troublesome. This is due to the fact that many of the calls which are made or received on behalf of a client may only account for a couple of minutes time to the professional and becomes either a nuisance to the professional to administratively log, bill and follow up weighed against the actual amount of time billed. Additionally, when the professional currently logs phone call time, it is commonly done in a preset increment of an hour, such as a sixth (10 minutes) of an hour, to account not only for the phone time, but also for the administrative time for billing and accounting. This can result in the client being over charged for the actual professional time spent.
A further problem is the unproductive time spent in administrative tasks relating to billing and accounting. There is also a need for an improved method of tracking accounts receivables.
Still another problem evolves around cost recovery. Presently, cost recovery equipment is very expensive and uses separate computer based devices which reside at the copy terminals and postage terminals and require interfacing with a myriad of different brand copiers and postage equipment. These separate devices require a user to input a client code in order to gain access to perform the operation. While these devices have are of some benefit, they are far more expensive and cumbersome to maintain.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a better billing system. The present invention overcomes these limitations.
The present invention is an improvement upon the disclosed invention in related continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/197,399 filed Nov. 20, 1998 which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/827,784 filed Apr. 11, 1997 which involved telephone detection integration within a billing system which also utilized Internet remote billing.
It is an object of the present invention to improve billing systems.
It is another object to improve the equipment used in a billing system.
It is another object to reduce administrative time in billing and accounting tasks by employing the present invention.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a billing system which includes a telephone, printing device, postage applicator, and a first computer-based device. The invention also includes means operably associated with the first computer-based device for detecting at least when one of the telephone, printing device and postage applicator is initiated for use and generating a signal in response thereto.
Means operably associated with the detecting means are also included for receiving the signal and automatically activating billing software application. The billing software application means operably associated with the first computer-based device enables logging of client data, service provider data and associating and accruing at least one of matter time at a first rate, call time at a second rate, printing usage at a third rate and postage usage at a fourth rate with a particular client into a billing data file, wherein the rates may or may not be the same. Said means further includes provisions for generating DTMF tones permitting telephone calls to be automatically placed by the user via the said billing software application.
The invention further includes second computer-based device, preferably remotely located, operably associated with the first computer-based device with complimentary software means operably associated therewith for enabling communication with the billing software application in the first computer-based device. The software means in the first computer-based device includes means for manually or automatically transmitting the data file to the second computer-based device. The software means of the second computer-based device has means for manually or automatically receiving and manipulating the data file in a manner to create an invoice to the client for the service provider.
The billing software means includes means for generating invoice data corresponding to the billing data file and generating a scanable identification indicia corresponding to the invoice data. Means for printing the invoice data and identification indicia on an invoice are provided. Further included are means operably associated with the first computer-based device and the billing software means for scanning the indicia to enable the billing software means to readily sort to the invoice debit data and enable credit thereto.
Other objects and advantages will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon viewing the drawings and reading the detailed description hereafter.